California's dream of a liberal utopia looks to be coming to an end

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Cap and Trade will save them Kip

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Cap and Trade will save them Kip

If Brown's tax proposal doesn't pass then nothing is going to save that state. There is more riding on that tax initiative then anything like it before in California's history. It's a make or break for the Dems in that state and if and when it fails it's all over for the liberal socialist utopia dream that so many Californian's had fed to them over the years. Mark my words, there are going to be riots there after Brown has to start slashing programs and education and he's going to have to make drastic cuts that will make the Greek austerity plan look like peanuts. I don't know if you remember when students in California rioted last year over tuition hikes (I posted a thread on it), but this time it's for real. And all those handouts to illegals is going to be brought up right off the bat when people there realize that the parties over. And seeing how California has the worst credit rating of all states atm it's going to be even worse for them when S&P drops them off a cliff. Can't pay your bills...then "see ya, wouldn't want to be ya". This is going to make for some epic threads on here. I'm salivating right now in anticipation. Good times to be had with this one.

Edited October 24, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/california-pension-fund-objects-court-san-bernardino-bankruptcy-022129218.html

California pension fund objects in court to San Bernardino bankruptcy

By Tim Reid | Reuters – 45 mins ago

(Reuters) - America's biggest public pension system filed a formal objection on Wednesday to a quest by San Bernardino to seek bankruptcy protection, citing the "disarray" in the Californian city's finances.

San Bernardino, a city of 210,000 people 60 miles east of Los Angeles, declared bankruptcy on August 1. Since then it has halted pension payments to the powerful California Public Employee Retirement System (Calpers), its biggest creditor.

The case could set precedent in how local governments deal with soaring pension costs. In particular, it is setting the stage for a showdown between Calpers and Wall Street bondholders and bond insurers over how they are treated as creditors in a municipal bankruptcy.

Last week Calpers made clear in public statements it would not tolerate San Bernardino, or any other Californian city, missing payments into its fund. Since it declared bankruptcy, San Bernardino has missed six biweekly payments totaling over $6 million.

On the deadline day for creditors to file objections to San Bernardino's bankruptcy claim, Calpers filed a 20-page objection and 116 pages of exhibits.

In its filing on Wednesday Calpers, which has long argued that contributions to its fund can never be suspended, even in a bankruptcy, said any arguments about whether San Bernardino can seek bankruptcy protection should be deferred until the city presented a detailed financial plan.

"The city's financial records are in disarray," Calpers said in its filing.

It added: "In filing this preliminary objection, the goal of Calpers is not to start a costly battle over eligibility (for bankruptcy) but rather to defer any dispute about eligibility until the City has produced credible projections which could form the basis of a feasible plan."

By 5 p.m. on Wednesday, the deadline for filing objections, no bondholder creditors appeared on the court docket as objecting to San Bernardino's eligibility for bankruptcy protection.

Karol Denniston, a Californian attorney and expert in Chapter 9 bankruptcy, the section of the federal code that deals with municipal bankruptcies, said not objecting could well have been a deliberate strategy by those Wall Street creditors.

If they objected to the city's eligibility and prevailed, Denniston said, the case would be dismissed - robbing bondholders of taking the fight to Calpers over the pension fund's status as a creditor.

"The absence of objections suggests a strategy of allowing the bankruptcy to proceed so they can focus on the issue of what type of creditor Calpers is," Denniston said.

San Bernardino is the first Californian authority to hold back payments from Calpers or indicate it might treat the pension fund like other creditors.

Two other Californian cities - Vallejo, which emerged from bankruptcy in 2011, and Stockton, which is seeking bankruptcy protection - decided to keep current on all payments to Calpers.

[lostinblue 1,989]

The real world will catch up to california very soon. Across this country from small towns to states we are broke. Promised way more to public workers than we can ever pay. The solution for everything is tax the rich more. Looks like from the kenyan down to the lowest mayor tax the rich will solve the problem. If you do the math the rich cannot support all the give away programs out there. My neighbors are stacking high and deep... from food to ammo as they fear after this election the economy will drop like a rock. Massive unrest in the streets from everyone that thinks the government owes them a paycheck.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

The real world will catch up to california very soon. Across this country from small towns to states we are broke. Promised way more to public workers than we can ever pay. The solution for everything is tax the rich more. Looks like from the kenyan down to the lowest mayor tax the rich will solve the problem. If you do the math the rich cannot support all the give away programs out there. My neighbors are stacking high and deep... from food to ammo as they fear after this election the economy will drop like a rock. Massive unrest in the streets from everyone that thinks the government owes them a paycheck.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/california-sues-over-11-million-campaign-donation-arizona-022424508.html

California sues over $11 million campaign donation from Arizona group

By Mary Slosson | Reuters – 48 mins ago

SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - A California campaign finance regulatory agency sued an Arizona group on Thursday over an eleventh hour $11 million donation to a political action committee, which the agency's head said was the largest such donation in state history.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission is suing the Phoenix-based Americans for Responsible Leadership for access to information about donors to the Arizona non-profit to evaluate if those donations comply with California campaign finance laws.

The commission said in its lawsuit, filed in the state Superior Court in Sacramento, that Americans for Responsible Leadership must cooperate with an audit into compliance with state disclosure laws before the November 6 election.

The donation constitutes not only one of the single largest contributions in the 2012 election season in California, but also the largest out-of-state contribution from one independent non-profit to another for the purposes of influencing an election, commission chairwoman Ann Ravel told Reuters.

"For them to have suddenly made an $11 million expenditure in California as an Arizona non-profit - it certainly makes us think that we need to get more information on them," Ravel said.

The Arizona group donated $11 million to the Small Business Action Committee PAC on October 15, according to the lawsuit.

The donation was intended to help fuel efforts to defeat a tax ballot initiative sponsored by California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, and support another ballot measure that would stop automatic paycheck deductions for political activities that is seen as a potential blow to labor unions.

Americans for Responsible Leadership could not be reached for comment on the lawsuit.

The contribution was brought to the commission's attention by Common Cause, a left-leaning political lobbying group that alleged the campaign donation was made with laundered money.

"To have that information remain anonymous really creates problems for our democratic process," Ravel said.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-proposition30-20121030,0,7045662.story

California Gov. Jerry Brown has yet to pick a central Prop. 30 sales pitch

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown still has not settled on a central sales pitch for his tax-hike initiative, even though support is shaky and election day is fast approaching.

He has said at turns that Proposition 30 is about fixing Sacramento, supporting local schools and creating jobs. At recent campaign stops, he has said the measure would help stabilize the state budget — even though ads in favor of it say the billions of dollars in new taxes will flow only to schools and cannot be touched by Sacramento politicians.

On the stump, Brown emphasizes that most of the tax increases will affect only the wealthiest Californians. The campaign ads make little mention of that.

The mixed messages underscore the Democratic governor's struggle to persuade skeptical taxpayers to open their wallets and provide fodder for a well-financed opposition to plant doubt among voters. A recent USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll showed support for the proposal slipping below 50% for the first time.

The shifting "creates uncertainty and makes voters head in the 'no' direction," said John Matsusaka, president of the Initiative & Referendum Institute at USC.

Californians have not approved a statewide tax increase since 2004, when they voted for a levy on those making more than $1 million to pay for expanded county mental health programs.

Brown has acknowledged the difficulty of selling new levies to voters, saying his campaign made a strategic decision not to mention the word "taxes" in its ads.

"It's hard to find the right phrases, the right words," Brown said, speaking to reporters after a San Francisco campaign event last week. "Everybody's so afraid to mention that taxes are even involved. We walk on eggshells."

From the outset, Brown had pitched his initiative as part of what he called a "balanced approach" to closing the state's budget gap. He had already cut billions of dollars from government programs.

With polls showing that voters were most likely to approve taxes to help schools, he said the new levies on sales and upper incomes would help him balance California's books, stave off education reductions and fulfill his campaign pledge to restore fiscal sanity to Sacramento.

As he traveled the state to promote his plan in the spring, he hammered home that point. "My goal is to balance the budget," the governor said repeatedly.

He cast his initiative as "far superior" to a separate tax measure by civil rights attorney Molly Munger because that proposal, Proposition 38, would send most of its new revenue to schools but would not fill the budget hole.

By summer, Brown had changed tactics.

Rocked by a financial scandal at the parks department and ill-timed legislative pay raises, the governor co-opted Munger's education message — and even mimicked her advertising, which vilified Sacramento and focused on government accountability. He aired television spots featuring teachers who argued that the new money would go directly to classrooms.

Another ad stars the state controller, an elected official, asserting that "Sacramento politicians can't touch the money."

But the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office has said "future actions of the Legislature and the governor would determine the use of these funds."

Some political analysts said the campaign ads tarnished the governor's reputation as an honest broker in the polarized Capitol.

"Brown's credibility was the most precious commodity that campaign had, and they've degraded it," said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant who helped former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger craft messages for a series of ballot measures in 2005.

Brown's opponents have seized on the contradictions, airing ads that cast Proposition 30 as "just another misleading budget gimmick by Sacramento politicians." And since most of the governor's ads do not mention where the new money would come from, anti-tax activists are filling the vacuum, focusing on the quarter-cent hike in the state sales tax.

"Prop. 30 makes our sales tax the highest in the nation," says one opposition ad, featuring a mother at a kitchen counter. "A billion dollars more a year for gasoline, clothes, things we buy every day."

Some of Brown's allies lament that he has failed to capitalize on the most politically potent part of the initiative: The new income taxes would fall on individuals making more than $250,000 a year or couples earning more than $500,000. That message could help reverse flagging support from Democrats, more than a third of whom say they're undecided or won't vote for the measure, according to the latest USC Dornsife/Times poll.

"People who are in the top 2% can afford to pay a bit more. We think it's really a powerful message," said Rick Jacobs, chairman of the Courage Campaign, a liberal advocacy group that backed the idea of a "millionaire" tax before abandoning that plan in an agreement with Brown. "The campaign has made another choice."

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/10/jerry-brown-taxes-kkk.html

Gov. Jerry Brown denies making racially charged remark in speech

Gov. Jerry Brown appeared to make a racially charged reference to the Ku Klux Klan during a speech to the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People on Friday, comparing the secretive Arizona nonprofit trying to defeat his tax-hike measure to people “who liked to run around in hoods.”

According to the Sacramento Bee, Brown used part of his speech to criticize the Arizona group, which has pumped $11 million into California campaigns while refusing to disclose its donors.

“I don't know where these people are from, because they're hiding, they're wearing masks," Brown said. "Remember the people who liked to run around in hoods because they didn't want people to see who the hell they are?"

After the speech, which he delivered to the NAACP's California state conference in San Mateo, Brown denied he was referring to the infamous hate group that terrorized black Americans.

"What it is, is that when people do things, sometimes they don't want to be exposed for what they're doing," he told the Bee.

So who was Brown referring too? Some people made their suggestions on Twitter.